


Shift

by messageredacted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:24:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Of course there’s going to be another victim,” Sherlock says. “The sniper isn’t done here.”</p><p>“How many will there be?” Lestrade asks.</p><p>Sherlock goes for the door and John hurries after him. “It depends what the sniper is trying to say.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on 18 October 2011.
> 
> You can listen to the podfic of Shift, read by pandarus and with cover design by cybel, [here (.m4b)](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/shift-audiobook) and [here (.mp3)](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/shift).

The man is lying where he fell, sprawled on his back with a look of eternal surprise on his face. The street has been cordoned off on both sides and onlookers are held back by the police. Sherlock ignores all of them as he squats over the body with his magnifying glass.

“His name’s Nelson Adams. He was on his way to work,” says Lestrade, standing with his hands in his pockets. His clothes are wrinkled. “Walked out his front door and got shot.”

The man himself is incredibly dull. The bullet holes are the most interesting things about him. His clothing is a few years old and slightly too large. The wear patterns on the bottoms of the man’s shoes show that he walks a lot, although the type of clothing shows that he has a desk job. Walks to work, then. The walking is probably a new development, due to the evidence of recent weight loss.

There’s an old, healed scar on the inside of his wrist, and Sherlock would bet there is a matching one on his chest and inner thigh—signs of a bypass. So, healthy walking habits encouraged by heart surgery. He has a wedding band on his left hand but a few old stains on the knee of his trousers and his collar is flipped up at the back of his shirt, so there isn’t anyone at home to care for his clothing or fix his collar. Wife gone, then, and probably dead if he’s still wearing the ring.

Wife dead but the new health routine could mean a new person in his life, but he’s still wearing the ring so probably not. More likely the death of his wife and his own surgery gave him a new perspective on life. No affair, then, which rules out any jealous husbands of lovers, if the fact that he was killed by a sniper rifle didn’t already rule that out.

“This shot missed his heart,” John says, crouching down next to Sherlock. “It might not have killed him if it had been the only one, but the shot to his head finished the job.”

“You have them out of order,” Sherlock says, checking the corpse’s pockets. Nothing. “Head first. Then chest.”

“But why?” John asks.

“Exactly.”

The first bullet hole, the one that dropped him, is in the centre of the man’s forehead. From the size of the exit wound and the angle of the hole, Sherlock would guess that it was a bullet from a sniper rifle, shot at quite a distance. A professional, then, in order to get such a perfect shot.

The second bullet is in the man’s chest, just to the left of his heart. Not a killing blow, but it certainly wouldn’t require one by that point. This was obviously shot when the man was lying on the ground, because the angle is too acute for him to have been shot while still standing.

Sherlock straightens up. “Almost as boring as the last victim,” he announces. Donovan rolls her eyes. Lestrade waits patiently. John straightens too, looking interested.

“Almost?” Lestrade prompts.

Sherlock points. “Nothing interesting about the victim. Heart surgery, dead wife, trying to get back in shape. Boring, boring, boring. But. He was shot twice. The killer’s obviously a professional, so why the second shot? To make sure he was dead? Obviously not; his first shot hit the man perfectly on target and his second one wasn’t even through the heart, which tells me that he wasn’t even trying with the second one. Why put in a second bullet if your first one did the job?

“He was angry?” Lestrade suggests.

“No, no, of course not. He’s a professional. Anger didn’t enter into it at all.”

“A message,” suggests Donovan.

Sherlock turns to her. “Exactly. But not to the victim, who was already dead. To the police. To me.”

“Is this how you lot communicate?” Donovan says. “Murder? What’s he trying to tell us?”

“It’s the same sniper as the last victim, Benjamin Quinn,” John says. “Right? He only used one bullet then.”

Sherlock shrugs and peels off his gloves. “Maybe that’s part of the message too. Who knows? I need more information.” He looks at Lestrade. “He must have been shooting from that building under construction over there.” A wave of his hand. “Fourth floor, I’d say, by the angle.”

“We do have people checking the area already,” Lestrade says dryly. “We’re not complete idiots, despite what you might think. You’re right. Fourth floor, second window to the right.”

Sherlock turns away from them without another word and starts for the building. John and Lestrade come after him while Donovan stays behind to supervise the body.

The building is covered in scaffolding, although the construction workers are currently standing around outside the building watching the police with curiosity. The fourth floor room has been taped off. Anderson and the rest of the forensics team are at work in their plastic suits.

“Everyone out,” Sherlock announces, coming into the room. He sees Anderson’s expression sour.

“Unless you have Lestrade with you,” Anderson starts.

“He has Lestrade with him,” calls Lestrade from down the hall, coming up behind Sherlock. “Five minutes, Sherlock.”

“Well?” Sherlock says to Anderson and the rest of the team, who are hesitating. “Out!”

The team files out the door and Sherlock goes to the centre of the room, turning in a full circle. Lestrade and John stand in the doorway, giving him his space.

The room is almost completely empty. The walls are unpainted plasterboard. The window is open, letting in the cold city air. There are scrapes on the windowsill where the feet of a sniper rifle would have stood. A smell of cigarettes lingers in the room, although there are no butts.

“He took his cigarettes with him,” Sherlock says. “A professional, obviously. Peculiar smell, though. I don’t recognise the brand.”

On the floor by the window is a small scrap of paper. Sherlock approaches it and squats down, taking out his magnifying glass. It’s the cover to a book of matches. A generic brand that could be purchased anywhere in the city, and Sherlock is willing to bet that there are no fingerprints on it. On the blank side of it, the word SHIFT has been scrawled with a cheap black pen. Male handwriting. Right-handed.

“I don’t suppose someone from forensics dropped this here,” he says.

“It was there when we got here,” says Lestrade. “A message or a mistake?”

“No mistakes,” says Sherlock. “Not this man.” He gets up again and gives the room one more look. There is nothing else.

“Shift?” John says, coming over. “What does that mean?”

“No idea,” Sherlock says happily. “Call me when you find the next victim.”

Lestrade raises his eyebrows. “I was sort of hoping there wouldn’t be a next victim.”

“Of course there’s going to be another victim,” Sherlock says. “The sniper isn’t done here.”

“How many will there be?” Lestrade asks.

Sherlock goes for the door and John hurries after him. “It depends what the sniper is trying to say.”

##

The first victim had been similar, only less interesting. A man named Benjamin Quinn who worked as a courier. He had been shot in the head in the afternoon, when he was coming home from a job. Shot only once, unlike the second victim. Since both victims so far had been shot outside their homes, it was obvious that the sniper had been camped out waiting for them, which meant he had chosen them specifically, although what the connection between them is, Sherlock has no idea.

Sherlock lounges on the sofa in the Baker Street flat, staring at the photographs Lestrade had provided him of the two murder scenes so far. Right now they are like two tantalising pieces of an unfinished puzzle.

The door slams downstairs and after a moment John comes in with two bags.

“I got you the batteries and tea you wanted,” John says, putting the bags on the floor next to the kitchen table, since the table itself is covered in a collection of femurs. He starts unpacking the bags. “Do you think you could tidy up a little? Sarah’s coming over tonight.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“I know. I just don’t want to give you the chance to pretend to forget and then start dissecting a corpse in the bathtub or playing the violin at three in the morning.”

“Will she still be here at three?”

“She’s _spending the night._ ”

“Sounds serious.”

“Sherlock.” John turns and gives him a pained look. “Maybe it’s best if you go… out. To the cinema or something.”

“Anything good on?”

John paused. “Okay, maybe not the cinema. But I just… I would just like some time alone with Sarah, and since her sister is staying at her flat for the month…”

“I won’t set foot upstairs.”

“And no texting me that you’re bleeding out unless you’re _actually_ bleeding out instead of just too lazy to get up and get a plaster, when you knew that Sarah and I were—”

“It’s not my fault that you came running. Or that you were checking your mobile. And there _was_ a lot of blood.”

“No texting, Sherlock.”

“No texting,” Sherlock says. “No violins. No dissecting corpses in the tub.”

John studies him suspiciously. Sherlock gives him a look of perfect innocence, which only makes John study him harder.

“No interrupting us at all.”

“Unless I’m dying or the house is on fire,” Sherlock promised.

“And don’t set it on fire.”

“I won’t.”

Sherlock’s mobile trills. He pulls it out of his pocket.

 _Victims no 3 and 4  
L_

Sherlock sits up. “Even better than the cinema,” he says.

“Should I go?” John asks. “Is it another victim?”

“Don’t forget to tidy the kitchen for Sarah.” Sherlock grabs his coat. “And don’t wait up.”

##

Lesley Trail is lying at the foot of the stairs at the back of her house, covered in rubbish from a ruptured bin bag. She has been shot four times, once in the head and three times in the torso. She was discovered when someone’s dog went nosing in the rubbish and found Ms. Trail instead.

“The first shot hit her when she was at the top of the stairs,” Sherlock says. “The sniper was nearly level with her, although quite a distance away. The other three were after she fell down the stairs and hit the ground. See how the angle is much greater?”

“I have people knocking on doors,” Lestrade says. “We’ll find where he was camped out.”

“You said there was another victim?” Sherlock says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Lestrade looks slightly amused.

“Yes. Ursula Xavier, eighty-nine years old. She was walking her dog in the park. Someone found her just an hour ago, but it looks like she was killed not long after Adams yesterday.”

‘“Three bullets?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.” Sherlock turns back to the body. “He’s numbering them. There’s some key to the order in which he’s killed them, and he wants us to know it. He must have known that some bodies would be found earlier than others, so he doesn’t want us to get them out of order.”

“Okay. Benjamin Quinn, Nelson Adams, Ursula Xavier, Lesley Trail… What sort of pattern is there? Quinn and Adams shot on their way to or from work. Xavier shot while walking her dog. Trail while taking out the rubbish.”

“Shh.” Sherlock steeples his fingers against his lips.

The letters of the names don’t combine to spell anything. B, Q, N, A, U, X, L, T. He’ll need more data for that. Gender: two male, two female. Could have meaning, but it might just be random. Age: fifty-two, forty-seven, eighty-nine, thirty-three. Again, he needs more data. There aren’t enough victims yet for him to tell anything. Even the locations seem random.

Lestrade steps away to answer a phone call. The murder scene is lit with floodlights which give everything a magnesium glow. The moon is high in the sky. Times of death? No, that can’t be significant if the killer was already accounting for the bodies to be found out of order. If he wanted their time of death to be a clue, he’d have made sure that they were found right after they were shot.

“We’ve found where he was shooting from,” Lestrade says. “Someone just reported a break-in.”

They head over to the house. The homeowner is just home from work and is standing outside, looking distressed, while police troop in and out of the house.

“I’ve been out all day,” he’s saying to Donovan. “Just found the broken glass. Did something happen?”

They go upstairs. The bedroom window has been broken. There is a ledge outside, an easy climb from the street. It’s a direct line of sight to the back of Lesley Trail’s house. Sherlock can see the floodlights and the forensics team still clustered around the body.

“He’s been planning this,” Sherlock says. “Two murders a day? He can’t be picking his victims and studying their habits so quickly. He spent time researching all of his victims, and now he’s setting his plan into motion.”

The room is messy, which makes the search a little more complicated, but Sherlock is soon able to ascertain that the killer has left nothing behind but the lingering smell of cigarettes. No notes written on matchbook covers or anything else.

“There’s nothing here,” Sherlock says. “Take me to the other victim.”

##

Sherlock returns to Baker Street past one in the morning and makes himself some tea. The sofa has been recently vacated and he can hear a faint murmuring upstairs from John’s bedroom, but he ignores it.

He spreads the photographs out on the floor and stands over them with his cup of tea. The slack faces of the four victims stare up at him.

His mind keeps coming back to Moriarty. Moriarty, who disappeared from the pool as if he had never existed and spent the entire summer and autumn in silence. Sherlock had almost thought him dead, but of course not. It would take a lot to kill that man, and it’s statistically unlikely that another serial killer would fixate on Sherlock so soon after Moriarty.

Sherlock finishes his tea and then stands on the sofa to replace the batteries in the smoke detector. He makes himself another cup of tea and sits cross-legged on the floor, picking up the photograph of the note written on the matchbook. Shift.

Shift what? Or who? Or where? There is a trendy restaurant named Shift, as well as a clothing store. Is it a command? Advice? Is it telling him to shift his way of thinking?

He lazily peels open a new pack of cigarettes and takes one out, sniffing it. The sniper smokes, but he can’t tell what cigarette. He bought a pack of every brand they sold in every shop in the area around Nelson Adams’s house. If the matchbook and pen were bought recently, it’s possible the cigarettes were too.

He rips open the next package and sniffs one of those too. It’s still not close to the cigarette that he’s looking for.

Working his way through the packs, he studies the pictures again. The victims were all shot from the front, which means the killer waited until they were looking his way before shooting them. But they couldn’t have seen him where they were, so it must have been more for his benefit than theirs. To verify their identity, perhaps? Again, yet another clue that the killer wanted to kill these people specifically, as mundane as they were.

Where had the killer found these people? Lestrade had yet to find any connection between the victims, and Sherlock hadn’t had much luck either. Quinn and Xavier went to the same church. Xavier also had a dog, but none of the others had pets. Trail worked from home and Xavier was retired. There was nowhere that the killer could have run into all of them.

There. Sherlock looks down at the pack of cigarettes he just opened. This is the brand that the killer has been smoking. He takes out one of the cigarettes and lights it, sticking it in the corner of his mouth.

He leans back against the sofa and stretches out his legs, waiting for the nicotine to clear his mind. Upstairs, Sarah laughs. Sherlock closes his eyes.

The smoke detector goes off with a shrill, piercing shriek. There’s a thump upstairs and Sherlock hears John start cursing. He smiles, keeping his eyes closed.

The smoke detector wails on, painfully loud. Footsteps come down the stairs. Sherlock opens his eyes to see John hastily tying his dressing gown. Sarah is behind him on the stairs, wearing her coat and most likely little else.

“I told you not to set the house on fire, Sherlock,” John says angrily, coming into the room.

“Hmm?” Sherlock takes a drag on the cigarette. “Nothing’s on fire.”

“Hello,” Sarah says, giving him a little wave from the doorway. She looks amused. Sherlock gives her a fake smile.

John stomps forward and snatches the cigarette from him. He drops it into Sherlock’s half-full cup of tea. “You’re not supposed to smoke in the flat. You quit, remember?”

“I was doing research.” Sherlock waves his hands in the air. “That smells like the cigarette the sniper smoked, doesn’t it?”

“I thought you took all the batteries out of the smoke detectors because they kept going off every time you did an experiment.” John climbs onto the sofa and reaches for the smoke detector, although his arms aren’t quite long enough. His dressing gown flaps around his legs.

“Sounds irresponsible of me.”

John stops suddenly and looks back down at him. “ _That’s_ why you wanted me to buy the batteries?”

Sherlock risks a glance up at him. “Can’t reach it?”

John makes a noise of annoyance and lets his arms drop. “Sarah, let’s get a hotel.”

“You can’t get a hotel at this time of night,” Sherlock says.

“It was almost a year,” John says. “You were almost off cigarettes for a whole year.”

John looks strangely disappointed with him. Sherlock has nothing to say to that. He watches Sarah disappear upstairs. John looks at him for a moment and then heads after her.

##

The next morning is cloudy and grey. The wind coming off the Thames is cold. The corpse, Reggie Lessinger, a factory worker, lays in a crumpled pile on the ground. One bullet to the head, four to the chest. His back is so much meat.

John doesn’t show up to the crime scene, which probably means Sarah made him turn off his phone, since otherwise Sherlock doesn’t think John can resist a crime scene no matter how angry he is with Sherlock. Lestrade leads Sherlock to the killer’s perch, this time on the roof of a warehouse.

A smooth stone has been left on top of another matchbook cover, pinning it down from the wind. Sherlock lifts the stone and looks at the scribble.

ROTTEN, it says.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” says Lestrade.

“Better,” Sherlock murmurs, but he’s lost in thought. Shift? Rotten? What do these words mean? It’s the same pen, the same handwriting. It’s the killer, all right. For a moment, Sherlock wonders if these clues are just a joke, meant to send him running in circles. But if this is Moriarty, Sherlock doesn’t think he would do such a thing. It would be boring to see Sherlock run after nonexistent clues. Better to make him run after impossible ones.

Is something rotten? Someone? Five victims in, and he can’t tell what the pattern is. Lessinger lives with his mother and has a dog. He’s forty-eight years old. Male. It’s frustrating and enthralling at the same time.

“There will be another one this afternoon,” Sherlock says.

“We need to start getting answers, Sherlock,” Lestrade says. “The press is going crazy. I don’t want to see a sixth victim.”

“I will figure it out,” Sherlock says. But by this afternoon? He can’t promise that.

##

“It has to stop, Sherlock. I’m putting my foot down.”

Sherlock is sitting on the sofa. The room still smells like cigarettes, but only faintly. Sherlock has stacked all of the packs of cigarettes up on his desk. They are a leaning tower of temptation. He’s trying to see how long he can hold out before having another one. Another year, maybe.

“What has to stop?” Sherlock asks, flipping through the photographs of this morning’s crime scene.

John finds his shoes underneath a chair and sits down to put them on. “Do you not like Sarah? Is that it? Because I really don’t care. She’s my girlfriend, and I’m allowed to have one.”

“I don’t want her in the flat anymore.”

“I pay my half of the rent. I go out of my way to run errands for you. Why can’t you do something for me?”

Sherlock sends a pointed look at the cane, which is leaning against the fireplace. “I do things for you. I cured your limp, didn’t I?”

John ties his shoe with short, sharp motions. “In return for you curing my limp, you want me to get rid of my girlfriend?”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Oh, right. It’s not that you don’t want me to have a girlfriend. You just don’t want her to spend time here, and don’t want me to spend time there, and invite yourself along on our dates when we go out together.” John gets to his feet.

“Once.”

“Twice, or don’t you remember two weeks ago when you just happened to show up at the same restaurant?”

“You weren’t answering your phone and I needed to talk to you.”

John takes in a breath and holds it for a second, then lets it out slowly. “Maybe I should move out.”

Sherlock turns his attention fully to John. “You wouldn’t do that. Your life is too dull without me.”

“Dull!” John exclaims. “Maybe I could use a little dull right now, after everything that’s happened to me! I was in less danger when I was in Afghanistan! Between you and Moriarty and all the little codes and games, I’m beginning to appreciate the dull life!”

Something comes together in Sherlock’s head with an elegant simplicity.

“Codes,” Sherlock says quietly. He stares at the far wall. “Shift. Oh, it’s so obvious!”

John stares at him in disbelief, then lets out a groan. “And now you’re just going to forget we were in the middle of an argument.”

“The note didn’t say ‘rotten.’ It said ‘ROT-ten’! How did I miss that?” Sherlock turns away from him and starts pawing through the photographs.

John turns and heads for the staircase to his bedroom, muttering under his breath. Sherlock finds the list of names of the victims. He writes them down in the order in which they were shot.

Benjamin Quinn  
Nelson Adams  
Ursula Xavier  
Lesley Trail  
Reggie Lessinger

That gives him BQ, NA, UX, LT, and RL. Back before he even met Moriarty, Moriarty was leaving him coded messages on his website. Simple stuff, incredibly basic cryptography with Caesar codes and pigpen ciphers. The notes read “Sherlock I am watching you” and “Sherlock I am coming for you” and “Sherlock I have found you.”

This is a Caesar code just like the first one, only instead of a thirteen letter shift, it is a ten letter shift, where A turns into J, B turns into K, C turns into L, and so on.

He quickly types out the alphabet and then the shifted alphabet on John’s laptop as John starts back down the stairs, wearing his coat. John shouts about going out to Sarah’s but Sherlock ignores him.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  
J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I

That turns BQNAUXLTRL into SHERLOCKIC. If he’s following the pattern of his previous message, it probably says SHERLOCK I C— What’s the next word? Most likely ‘can’ or ‘could’. Probably not ‘could’, actually, since all the other notes have been in present tense. And if the next word is ‘can’, then the A and N will translate to the initials of the next victim. Sherlock runs his finger across the screen.

J.W.

“John!” Sherlock shouts, shooting to his feet. He can hear John talking to Mrs. Hudson downstairs. “John, wait!”

“I’ll see you later, Sherlock,” John calls up the stairs to him.

Sherlock reaches the top of the stairs and takes them three at a time. Mrs. Hudson looks up at him, startled. John, pulling the front door open, looks back.

Sherlock grabs John’s collar and yanks him backwards as the first shot cracks the air. He feels John’s body shake with the impact of the bullet, and something hot sears through Sherlock’s side.

Mrs. Hudson screams. Another bullet smashes into the wall. John is struggling. Sherlock drags him backward, away from the open doorway, and a bullet shatters John’s thigh. Blood sprays.

Somewhere in the back of his head, Sherlock is keeping count. One, two, three. The next bullet gets Mrs. Hudson in the chest. A fifth plows through the floor, throwing up splinters. The sixth hits the door, which bounces back against the wall and then swings halfway shut.

Everything is going in slow motion, like it did after the pool. Sherlock is on his back on the floor with John sprawled across his chest. Mrs. Hudson is on her stomach, clawing her way across the floor, away from the open door. She’s leaving a trail of blood. He struggles out from under John, who doesn’t fight him. There is a bullet hole in John’s stomach, just under his rib cage. Sherlock presses his hands against it and blood wells around his hands, soaking him to the wrist instantly.

John is staring up at him, his eyes wide, his face pale. His lips move. “You’ve been shot,” John mouths.

It’s the stupidest thing the man has ever said. Sherlock yanks off his dressing gown and balls it up, pressing it against John’s wound.

“Tell me what to do,” he says to John desperately. “Tell me what to do.”

John just gapes up at him, his eyes going unfocused.

Sherlock fumbles for the pocket of his dressing gown and finds his phone. His fingers are coated in blood and soon his phone is too, but it still works and he dials an ambulance. The second he hangs up he’s already forgotten what he said to the woman on the phone, but it doesn’t matter because John’s mouth is slack and the dressing gown is soaking with blood. There are already sirens in the distance.

##

“They found the room where the sniper was,” Donovan says to Lestrade, hanging up her phone. “Anderson says they haven’t found any other clues yet.”

“He’ll want to look at it,” Lestrade replies with a sigh. He doesn’t need to specify who ‘he’ is. “Don’t let Anderson release the scene yet.”

Donovan nods and shoots a look down the hall. Sherlock is sitting in one of the chairs of the waiting room. His elbows are resting on his knees and his hands are dangling in mid air. His hands and arms are painted red up to the elbow, although he assured Lestrade that it wasn’t his. The bloodstains on his shirt _are_ his, though. A bullet grazed his ribcage after coming out of John, cracking two ribs.

“How is John?” Donovan asks in a low voice.

“No word yet,” Lestrade murmurs back. “He was alive when they brought him in, but they didn’t seem hopeful. Their landlady looks like she’ll make it, at least.”

Donovan nods. Sherlock raises his head and looks their way. Lestrade feels a chill at the dead look in his eyes.

“Christ,” Donovan mutters. She exchanges a glance with Lestrade, looking spooked. “I’ll go talk to Anderson.”

Lestrade nods and starts down the hallway towards Sherlock. Donovan turns away, heading back out to an area where she can use her mobile.

“Any word yet?” Lestrade says when he gets closer to Sherlock.

“Was there another note?” Sherlock asks him. His voice is perfectly even, without inflection.

“No. Nothing.”

“Your forensics team is so blind—”

“You can go see it yourself,” Lestrade says, cutting him off. “But there was nothing there.”

Sherlock subsides into silence.

“How did the sniper mess up this time?” Lestrade says, sitting down in the chair across from Sherlock. “He left John and Mrs. Hudson alive.”

“Mrs. Hudson wasn’t the target,” Sherlock says. His eyes are still dead and Lestrade can’t quite bring himself to meet them. He looks down at Sherlock’s bloody hands instead.

“How do you know?”

“Only six bullets. It’s a code, Lestrade. Moriarty is sending me a message. He has before, just never with so many…” One of the bloody hands makes a vague gesture. “…Bodies.”

“You knew John was the next target.”

“It’s the initials of the victims. J and W were the next two letters in the message.”

“What does the message say?”

“So far it says ‘Sherlock I can.’ ”

“Do you know who he’s going to attack next?”

Sherlock slowly shakes his head. “I don’t know what it is Moriarty can do.”

His eyes are fixed on Lestrade, and Lestrade can’t help but meet his gaze again. Despite all the times Sherlock has done dangerous things, despite all the times that Donovan has warned of Sherlock’s psychosis, _now_ is the first time that Lestrade is truly afraid of him. It is a sudden and breathtaking realisation.

“So we know that there will be more victims, then,” Lestrade says, swallowing and looking away again.

“Of course.” Sherlock abruptly looks at his hands, as if seeing the blood on them for the first time. “I want to see the crime scenes again. All of them. There has to be another clue.”

“But John,” Lestrade starts.

“He’ll be in surgery for another few hours if he survives it. I’m not going to sit here any longer. Let’s go.”

##

Sherlock’s sitting on the roof of the warehouse just before noon the next morning where the killer shot Reggie Lessinger, measuring a partial footprint that might possibly be from the killer if it’s not from one of the dozens of clumsy police officers who have tramped around up there when he gets the text from Lestrade.

 _Victim no 7 found ten minutes ago.  
L_

 _Name  
SH_

 _Valerie Janes  
L_

Sherlock takes the fire escape down the side of the building while he runs through the shifted alphabet in his head. Valerie Janes translates to M and A. SHERLOCK I CAN MA—

Could be ‘maim’, ‘mar’, ‘mail’. But probably ‘make’, and if it’s make, the next word is probably ‘you’. K and E will translate to T.N., which will be their next victim. Y and O will translate to H.X. if he’s right, which will give them victim number nine. The U will translate to a D. but he won’t have the next initial until he knows what comes after YOU.

SHERLOCK I CAN MAKE YOU

Sherlock reaches the ground and takes off at a jog for the street to hail a taxi. The killer is choosing his victims based on their names and nothing else. Where is he getting the names? The phone book is the likeliest guess, since there has been no connection between the victims so far except that they all live in London.

He texts Lestrade again as he hails a taxi.

 _Get me a phone book  
SH_

Lestrade doesn’t respond, but when the taxi pulls up at the scene of the crime, there is a phone book tucked under Donovan’s arm.

“You’d better have figured out who the killer is,” Donovan says, ignoring his outstretched hand.

“Almost,” he says, snatching the phone book from her. She watches him flip through it.

“Are you going to call him or are you going to send him a message with bodies?” Donovan asks.

Sherlock runs his finger down the page. First victim, Benjamin Quinn. It’s the first name in the phone book with the initials B.Q. He flips to the front of the book. Nelson Adams. Again, the first person with the correct initials.

He goes forward to the N names and runs his finger down the list until he comes to the first T. “Your next victim is going to be Terrence Norton,” he says to Donovan, and flips to the Xs. “The one after that is going to be Hannah Xu.”

She raises her eyebrows. “You’re serious?” she says, sounding almost impressed.

He ducks under the police tape and heads into the building without answering her. Lestrade is waiting inside with the body, which is lying on the kitchen floor next to a shattered window.

“How’s John?” Lestrade asks when he sees Sherlock. Sherlock goes straight to the window and squints up at the building next door.

“Out of surgery,” he said succinctly.

“Have you seen him?”

“They won’t let me in yet.”

Lestrade hums in sympathy and Sherlock turns away from the window, giving the body a brief glance. Middle-aged woman, shot seven times. Unimportant. He leaves the room. A startled Lestrade comes after him.

“You’re not even going to look at her?”

“Have your men found the sniper’s spot yet?” Sherlock replies, striding out the front door and turning left, towards the building next door.

“Yes,” Lestrade says. “He was on the roof again. They haven’t found anything yet. Talk to me, Sherlock.”

Sherlock shoves the phone book at him without slowing down. “He picks them out of a phone book. The victims are unimportant. The names are what matter. I gave Donovan the next ones.”

“You found the next victims?”

“Keep up, Lestrade,” Sherlock snaps. “Just the next two. I won’t know any more than that until he kills the tenth victim.”

“We’re not going to let him kill victims just so you can get the message, Sherlock,” says Lestrade, waving towards Donovan, who starts to jog over. “We need to stop him.”

Sherlock stops walking and turns to Lestrade. “Stopping him is the only thing I am focused on.”

Lestrade grimaces. “Sorry. Yes, I know.”

“Sir?” Donovan says, joining them. Sherlock turns away from them both and starts walking again.

Lestrade hands her the phone book. “Sherlock gave you names? Send someone to their houses and pick them up. I don’t want the sniper to get to them before we do.”

“Yes, sir,” Donovan says, heading back to the crime scene.

They enter the neighbour’s building and head to the roof, where a police officer is standing guard. Sherlock heads straight for the ledge and looks down, then takes out his magnifying glass and begins to study the ledge.

“I’m sorry about John,” Lestrade says awkwardly.

“He’s not dead yet,” Sherlock says. There is nothing here that he hasn’t already seen at the other crime scenes, but he keeps looking. There has to be something. There _has_ to be.

“Is Moriarty behind this?”

Sherlock doesn’t answer. He sweeps the ground with his eyes. There’s a tiny chip in the tar where a bullet shell might have fallen and been collected. There’s the faintest imprint of a knee where the killer rested his weight. Given the elasticity of the roof tar, the killer must be around fifteen stone.

“He has a night job,” Sherlock says, standing up.

“How can you tell?”

“Times of death,” Sherlock says. “Benjamin Quinn, killed at three p.m. Nelson Adams, killed at seven a.m. Ursula Xavier, killed between eight and ten a.m. Lesley Trail, around four p.m. Reggie Lessinger, killed seven a.m. Valerie Janes, probably between nine and eleven a.m. He spends some time waiting for them to show up. He smokes two or three cigarettes while he’s waiting. He does all of this during daylight hours, even though he’s more visible. He doesn’t kill anyone at night because he’s busy.”

“But don’t you think he’s getting paid to kill these people?”

“Yes, but it can’t be regular work. He’s a professional, but he’s not solvent. I’d say the gun’s not his. It was provided by whoever hired him. Something like this would run him thousands of pounds, and he still buys the cheapest cigarettes he can find?”

Lestrade looks over the edge of the roof. “So, a night job doing what?”

Sherlock shakes his head and doesn’t answer.

“Sherlock?”

Donovan comes out onto the roof from the doorway. She’s still holding the phone book. He turns to her distractedly.

“The victims that you found in the book,” she says. “They were all the first ones in the book with the right initials, yeah?” She holds out the phone book. “Except for Lesley Trail. She was the second.”

Sherlock abruptly focuses on her. Lestrade takes the phone book from Donovan and Sherlock snatches it from his hand, opening it up.

Under the T names, the first name that starts with an L is Leroy Taylor. Lesley Trail is the second down the page.

“He could have gone on holiday,” Lestrade says.

“Or he knows our killer,” Sherlock replies.

##

It takes them the rest of the afternoon to track down Leroy Taylor, who is not on holiday. He’s the manager of a hotel and spends his days working the front desk and supervising the staff. He meets with Lestrade and Sherlock in his office.

Taylor sits behind his desk, wringing his large hands. “What is this about?” he asks nervously, directing the question at Lestrade. He seems unsure what to make of Sherlock.

“We’d just like to ask you a few questions,” Lestrade says after a glance at Sherlock. “Have you been out of the area for an extended time over the past month?”

“No,” Taylor says. “I’ve been here. My last trip was six months ago. I went to Ireland.”

“How about two nights ago?”

Taylor answers Lestrade’s question while Sherlock looks around the room. This man is not the killer, he knows already. His hands are too unsteady and he’s a skinny man, not quite the weight of the killer.

“When does your night shift arrive?” Sherlock asks, interrupting the man.

“They start at six.” Taylor glances at his watch. “They should be arriving now.”

“I want to see them.”

Taylor nods. “I’ll have them assemble in the lobby.”

Sherlock gives him an impatient nod and Taylor excuses himself, heading out of the room.

“He’s not the killer, I take it,” Lestrade says, pushing back his chair.

“No.” Sherlock paces the office, studying the photos on the wall.

“We’re just about set,” Taylor says a moment later, stepping back into the office.

Sherlock and Lestrade follow him out. There are a dozen nervous looking men and women standing the lobby, talking amongst themselves. A hush falls over them when they catch sight of Sherlock and Lestrade.

Sherlock stands and glances over the crowd in silence for a moment. “This is your whole night staff?” he asks Taylor finally.

“Mary’s running late,” Taylor replies. “She should be here in a few minutes.”

“This is a waste of time,” Sherlock says and heads for the door.

Outside, the air is chilly. Sherlock puts his hands in his pockets and wishes for a cigarette. He stands on the sidewalk. After a moment, Lestrade comes out the door behind him.

“I got a list of their names and addresses, anyway,” Lestrade says, waving a paper at Sherlock. “Was it just a coincidence that he skipped the name, do you think? Or did he do all of his preparation for this six months ago, when Taylor was away?”

“I’m going to see John,” Sherlock says.

Lestrade nods. “I’ll head back to the office, then.”

A car door slams. The last worker, who must be Mary, leans into the open window to give the driver a kiss. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She stands up again and waves, then hurries past Sherlock and Lestrade and into the hotel.

A whiff of cigarette smoke comes with her passing. Sherlock glances at her—not a smoker, at least not a habitual one. He transfers his attention to the car, where he sees the cherry end of a cigarette flare before the car pulls away.

“Mind sharing a taxi?” Lestrade asks.

Sherlock stares after the car and then plucks the list of names and addresses out of Lestrade’s hand. He glances at it, then hands it back.

“Something?”

“Nothing. Let’s go.”

##

The killer’s name is David Gates. Sherlock finds him on Facebook.

Sherlock is sitting in the chair next to John’s hospital bed, while machines beep around them. John is pale and silent on the bed. A ventilator is breathing for him. He opened his eyes briefly a few hours ago, but only for a moment before drifting off again. With the ventilator he was unable to speak.

Sherlock has John’s laptop. He looked up Mary Peters, the woman on the hotel night shift, with the address that had been on Lestrade’s paper. From there he found her banking information, dating profile, personal blog and Facebook account. On the latter, there is a gallery of photos with her new boyfriend, David Gates.

David is a large man, solid and muscular. In the photos, he is smiling. He is clean shaven, with short hair. Right handed, by the relative sizes of his biceps. About fifteen stone.

Sherlock keeps coming back to the photo. He wants to burn the image into his brain, and he doesn’t quite understand why, but every time John’s chest inflates with a mechanical jerk, his fingers twitch on the keyboard and he stares and stares and stares.

##

He leaves the hospital at ten p.m. and goes straight to Baker Street. He’s a little light-headed from hunger but he ignores it. He doesn’t think he could eat even if he weren’t on a case.

He paces the floor in front of the fireplace for an hour, his mind racing so fast that he almost can’t keep up with it. He lights a cigarette and, when that’s done, lights another. He puts on a nicotine patch too, out of habit.

At one in the morning, he reaches for another cigarette and realises that the pack is empty. He sits down on the sofa and stares into the empty pack for a moment, considering it.

David Gates avoided killing Leroy Taylor because he thought that it might bring too much attention to his girlfriend and thus himself. But by avoiding Taylor, he made himself stand out even more.

Sherlock could call Lestrade and let him know. Gates will be arrested. The shootings will stop.

SHERLOCK I CAN MAKE YOU

It doesn’t matter what Moriarty thinks he can make Sherlock do. It shouldn’t matter. Sherlock should turn in Gates. It will save lives. It will be revenge enough just to see Gates get punished for his crimes.

He closes his eyes, but behind his eyelids he can see John’s chest rising with the ventilator, and Gates smiling in the Facebook photo. He could turn Gates in to the police, but that’s not the only solution to the problem.

SHERLOCK I CAN MAKE YOU

##

Mrs. Hudson is awake in her hospital bed, although her face is grey with the drugs and the distant pain. She brightens when she sees him.

“Sherlock,” she says, her voice hoarse. She reaches out a hand. He comes forward and stands next to the bed. She gropes around for his hand and he belatedly lets her have it.

“You’re looking well,” he lies.

“I’ll be fine,” she says, trying to give him a smile. “How’s John?”

He tries to frame some sort of a response, but can’t seem to put the words together. Mrs. Hudson squeezes his hand.

“Oh, Sherlock,” she says, reading something in his expression that he wasn’t aware of.

“How’s the pain?” he asks her, because it’s something to say.

“It…comes and goes,” she says. Her eyes glaze. “I’m sorry, Sherlock, I’m very tired.”

“I’ll bring flowers later,” he says. She’s already asleep. He reclaims his hand and leaves her to it.

They’ve taken John off the ventilator. His lips are chapped and his eyes are sunken, but when Sherlock comes into the room, his lashes flutter.

“John?” Sherlock says. He approaches the bed. John’s eyes open and his gaze flits unsteadily over Sherlock and the ceiling. “John, are you awake?”

John’s eyes catch on him and a slow, drugged recognition floods his gaze. He tries to speak and then stops, licking his lips.

“You were on a ventilator. You might not be able to talk,” Sherlock warns him.

John clears his throat and tries again. “You’re…okay.”

“Me?” Sherlock almost laughs. “You were the one who was shot. Well.” He glances down and his own chest. “I was clipped. But it went through you first.”

John works through a few expressions, but his consciousness seems to be fading again.

“I’m going to catch him, John,” Sherlock says. John’s gaze slips from his face and wanders off.

“Is he awake?” Sarah is in the doorway, clutching a vase of flowers.

“Not for much longer,” Sherlock says. He wants to tell her to leave, but John’s focus has sharpened again at the sound of Sarah’s voice. Sherlock steps back and Sarah comes around the edge of the bed, putting the flowers on the table. John smiles at her, or tries to. She kisses him.

“I’m here,” she says.

Sherlock leaves the room.

He’s in the hallway, thumbing through mobile.facebook.com when Sarah comes back out of the room. He waits for her to leave but instead she stops next to him.

“Thank you for saving him,” she says.

“I wasn’t doing you a favour,” he says.

She hesitates, almost looking irritated, but then her expression softens and she smiles wryly instead. “This isn’t a competition, Sherlock. People can care about more than one person in their lives. I suppose the fact that you care about anyone at all is an accomplishment, but there are people who can care about two, three, even four entirely different people!” She’s laughing at him, but it’s almost fond.

It’s nearly ruined him to care for one person. He can’t imagine having to care for more. How can John stand it?

He’s saved from having to answer her when his phone beeps with a text message in his pocket. He fishes out the phone.

“John’s asleep. I’m off to work but I’ll be back later,” Sarah says. He nods and brings up the message.

 _Daniel Morgan, shot 10 times.  
L_

Sherlock closes his eyes. The killer must have realised that the next two victims were being watched by the police, and have known that Sherlock had worked out the next four letters of the message.

For a moment, he studies himself to see if he feels any guilt for this new victim. After all, if he had turned in David Gates to Lestrade last night, Daniel Morgan would still be alive. However, he can’t seem to bring himself to care at the moment.

D.M. translates to UD in the message. SHERLOCK I CAN MAKE YOU D

Sherlock returns to John’s room. He picks up the vase of flowers from the table and puts them on the windowsill, then pulls the curtain around John’s bed. John is asleep now, his head tipped back on the pillow. Sherlock pulls on his scarf and leaves the room.

SHERLOCK I CAN MAKE YOU DANCE

##

Across the street from the hospital is a row of office buildings. Sherlock circles around the back of one and finds the entrance to the fire escape. He climbs up to the roof, noting which floor is unoccupied, and takes John’s service pistol out of his coat pocket before going to the edge of the roof. His hands are shaking slightly and his heart is beating very fast. He has a shopping bag dangling from one wrist, courtesy of a quick trip to the hospital locker room.

From here he can pick out John’s window from the vase of flowers in it. In the shadows of the room he can see the curtain around John’s bed. John is out of sight. He transfers his attention back to the rooftops around him.

He is in a world of ventilation ducts and chimney pots. The next four buildings on this street have the same view of John’s window.

Sherlock focuses his attention on the roof around him. He takes the shopping bag from his arm and paws through it. There is a pair of trainers in there, slightly muddy from a walk to work. He takes one out and pulls off his own shoe, putting on the trainer. The trainer is too small for him, which is good.

He takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, one of the ones that hadn’t turned out to be the brand David Gates smoked. He lights one, then quickly tosses it to the roof and stomps it out carelessly. He picks up the butt and pockets it, then takes off the trainer and returns it to the bag, putting his own shoe back on.

Then, he settles in to wait, trying to take deep breaths to calm the flood of unfamiliar emotions in his chest. Terror is the biggest one. Terror for John. Terror for what he’s about to do, even though he knows absolutely that this is the only option. He never thought that he would be afraid in this situation. He always thought he would be calm and focused.

His heart leaps when the fire escape on the adjacent building rattles. A head appears over the ledge of the roof and then David Gates appears, a parcel strapped to his back. He moves quietly and competently. He is wearing a hat and a scarf around his mouth, but there is no way that Sherlock wouldn’t recognize him. Not this man.

Gates goes to the edge of the roof and studies the windows down below before kneeling down to start assembling his rifle. Sherlock casts another glance down at John’s window. John is safe until a nurse comes in and opens the curtain around his bed. Gates seems to be content to wait.

Sherlock lets the man set up the rifle and train it on the window. When it’s all assembled, Gates sits back and lights himself a cigarette.

There was a night almost a year ago when John Watson took aim with this very pistol and saved Sherlock’s life. Sherlock is not as professional, but he is not unfamiliar with firearms. He aims at the bulk of Gates, feeling his palms sweating against the stock of the gun. Back then, John Watson never hesitated, and Sherlock doesn’t either. He lets out a long, slow breath, squeezing the trigger as he does so.

The report of the gun is loud, startling pigeons into the air. Gates lurches forward, dropping his cigarette. He turns his head, blindly searching for Sherlock, and Sherlock shoots again, and then once more. The man falls to the ground.

Sherlock rises to his feet and stuffs the gun into the pocket of his coat. Keeping low, he climbs back down the fire escape and into the empty top floor office. He goes through to the stairwell and descends to the street, then crosses to the hospital again.

He slips into the locker room and returns the trainers where he found them, then washes the powder off his hands in the lavatory and checks his reflection. His face is flushed, which startles him. He splashes water on his face and towels it dry, then pulls his phone from his pocket to send a text to Lestrade.

 _He’s coming back for John.  
SH_

The reply comes a second later.

 _On my way  
L_

He puts his phone back in his pocket, takes a few deep breaths, and then rushes out of the lavatory. He takes the stairs because they’re faster.

A nurse is just taking John’s vitals. She looks up, surprised, when Sherlock rushes in and closes the blinds in the window.

“Excuse me,” she starts.

“The police will be here any minute,” Sherlock says. “This man is in danger. Please, do not open these blinds if you value his life and your job.”

“What is going on?”

He ignores her, pulling out his phone again.

 _Next word in message ‘dance’. Initials of next two victims JW and LN. Don’t have phone book with me.  
SH_

After a moment, the response.

 _Laura Nadow is next name in book. Sending people to pick her up now. Almost at hospital.  
L_

 _Quickly.  
SH_

Sherlock scrubs his hands through his hair to make himself slightly more ruffled and starts pacing the room.

Donovan arrives first, appearing in the doorway of the room. Her eyes go to the shaded window, then Sherlock. “You’re sure he’s out there.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says.

“I sent someone to pick up the next J.W. in the phone book just in case.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “He’s coming for John.”

Lestrade comes into the doorway of the room. He’s out of breath. “They’re searching the buildings in the area,” he says. “Someone reported shots a few minutes ago.”

“Shots?” Sherlock asks.

“Is he going after someone else?” Donovan adds.

“They’re following up on it.” Lestrade catches Sherlock’s eye. “Only three shots.”

“There would be eleven,” Sherlock says.

Lestrade’s mobile rings. They all watch him as he answers it.

“Lestrade.” His eyes fix on Sherlock. “You’re sure? Okay. Thank you.” He hangs up.

“Well?” Sherlock says impatiently.

“They found a corpse on the roof of the building across the street,” Lestrade says. “He has a sniper rifle with him.”

“He’s dead?” Donovan says in surprise.

“He’s dead,” Lestrade confirms. “Who ‘he’ is, though…”

“I need to see the body,” Sherlock says.

##

The body is lying on the roof, shot three times in the chest. Lestrade stands back and watches Sherlock stalk around the body like a long-legged bird. Sherlock seems possessed by an intense energy that is almost disturbing. It puts Lestrade on edge.

“Cigarette’s still warm,” Sherlock announces, squatting down. “Blood’s wet. Happened within the last half hour.”

Lestrade looks around. There are buildings on either side of them that are around the same height, and enough vents and outcroppings to hide a whole army of snipers. “The killer can’t have gotten far.”

“Small calibre handgun.” Sherlock turns and squints. “Shot from over there.” He points.

“Who would shoot him, though?” Donovan asks. “If they knew he was going to be here, they knew he was going to shoot John, but who would know that except Moriarty? And why would Moriarty shoot his own man?”

Sherlock’s gaze settles on her. “It’s all a game to him,” he says. “He knew I had figured out his message. He could have been afraid that I would track this man down and get information out of him.” He straightens up and strides for the edge of the roof.

“I wouldn’t—” Lestrade starts, but Sherlock leaps from this roof to the next, clearing the gap easily. Lestrade reaches the ledge and looks down, feeling queasy.

“Oh, go on,” Sherlock says, turning to look at him. “It’s not that difficult.” Despite that, he presses a hand to his cracked ribs with a brief grimace.

“I’ll watch from here,” Lestrade says. Sherlock gives him a sardonic smile and turns his attention to that corner of the roof. He begins to search the area thoroughly with his magnifying glass.

“You don’t think it was Moriarty himself?” Lestrade says.

“No,” Sherlock says. “He would use someone else.” He bends down. “Looks like this sniper smoked too.”

Lestrade strains to see. Sherlock glances up at him and rolls his eyes. Donovan steps up onto the ledge and looks down, then leaps across the gap. She lands next to Sherlock.

“Not so difficult,” she says, grinning at Lestrade.

“I’m still not trying it,” Lestrade says.

“Here, see?” Sherlock turns his attention to Donovan and points at the ground. “He stomped out a cigarette. You can see the carbon here, and a partial foot print. It looks like mud. Reddish mud, high iron content. Not a lot of places in London with mud that colour.”

She squints down at the print. “So he was waiting for the sniper, then?”

“Not too long, I wouldn’t think. It doesn’t smell strongly of cigarettes here, and he was interrupted in his smoke. Only a few minutes. A small footprint, so he’s a short man.”

“That’s a start,” Lestrade says.

“I doubt he’ll be back,” Sherlock says. “He finished his job. I got the message.”

“ ‘Sherlock, I can make you dance,’” Lestrade recites. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Sherlock shrugs, looking towards the hospital. “I don’t know.”

Lestrade follows his gaze, looking towards John’s window. “Well. I guess we’ll get started on this new sniper, then.”

“I’m going back to the hospital,” Sherlock says, stepping up onto the ledge again. He looks down, then hesitates. “I think I’ll take the stairs.”

Donovan looks relieved. Lestrade grins and Sherlock steps back down, casting about for the fire escape.

“I’ll let you know if we find anything else,” Lestrade calls to him.

“Of course.” Sherlock finds the fire escape. “But I wouldn’t call him a new sniper.”

Lestrade hesitates. “No?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one who shot the cabbie.”

Sherlock descends the fire escape. Lestrade remains where he is, staring after them.

He can remember Sherlock standing by the ambulances, telling him about the sniper. “You're looking for a man, probably with a history of military service and nerves of steel…” and then, “Actually, do you know what? Ignore me. Ignore all of that. It's just the shock talking.”

He had thought of John at the time. Of course, John has an intermittent hand tremor and, as far as Lestrade knows, no gun, but there are other clues. There wasn’t really enough evidence to take John in for it, and he had let it slide.

But it can’t be John this time.

“Sir?” Donovan asks, watching him. “Is something wrong?”

Lestrade takes a breath, looking down at the roof where the cigarette ash and footprint have been left. A clue. Or a fabrication by a genius.

“No,” he says. “Nothing is wrong.”

##

“I feel like I’ve been shot.”

Sherlock looks up from the laptop to see John gingerly lifting the bed sheets to see the extent of his bandages.

“Oh, that’s why,” John says.

Sherlock sets the laptop aside and straightens up, picking up his mobile. “How is the pain? Terrible, I’d imagine. They never give you enough painkillers.”

“Terrible,” John agrees, although he laughs when he says it. “You look like you haven’t slept.”

“I’ve been a bit distracted.” Sherlock glances down at his mobile and fires off a quick text.

 _He’s awake  
SH_

John shifts a little on the bed, wincing. “By the case?”

Sherlock stares at him and then smiles. “Yes, John. By this terribly distracting case.”

John settles back against the pillows. “Did you catch the sniper?”

“Yes.”

John looks at him, then looks toward the window. “Oh, who brought the flowers?”

Sherlock glances over at them. “Sarah. She was in yesterday.” He looks out the window towards the roof of the building across the street, then turns his back to the view.

John smiles wistfully, looking at the flowers, then turns his attention back to Sherlock. “You were injured, weren’t you? I can only vaguely remember…”

“I should have figured it out sooner,” Sherlock says. “I should have kept you from being shot.”

“You kept me from being killed.”

“Barely.”

“That’s good enough.”

“It’s not. John…” Sherlock hesitates. “Maybe you were right about needing a dull life.”

John studies him and his expression softens. “Sherlock, I was angry when I said that.”

“It doesn’t mean you weren’t right.”

“Yes, I’m in danger when I live with you,” John says. “I know that. I’ve known that from the day I met you, and if it mattered to me that much, I’d move out. But I lived a dull life before, and I choose this one.”

Sherlock considers this. “Sarah wants me to share you.”

John snorts and then coughs. “She said that?”

“Not in so many words.”

“And?”

Sherlock shrugs. “I won’t set off the smoke detector while you’re upstairs anymore.”

John hesitates as if trying to tell whether this is an apology or not. He finally smiles. “Okay.”

There is a soft tap at the door. Sarah is in the doorway. She beams at John and he beams back.

“Good morning,” she says to him, coming over to the bed. She gives John a very careful hug. “You’re looking much better.” She turns and gives Sherlock a warm look. “I was on my way here anyway, but thanks for the text,” she says to Sherlock.

He inclines his head and says nothing. John looks startled, then shoots Sherlock a grateful look.

Sherlock just smiles, settling back in his chair and clasping his hands together. He can still faintly feel the pressure on his trigger finger, as if it has been burned into his skin. He’s no longer threatened by Sarah (if he is even inclined to admit he was threatened in the first place).

He knows, if it came down to it, John would never kill for Sarah. And she would never kill for him.

“I’m glad you’re here,” John says quietly. He glances at Sherlock, and Sherlock knows that it was meant for him.

He's glad too.

**Works inspired by this one:**

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